Mass email is a vital tool for keeping students, faculty, staff, and alumni connected. It helps us share updates, deadlines, and events, fostering engagement and a sense of community within our college. Regardless of which email marketing platform you use, we have best practices for building and sending emails to ensure you follow Penn State guidelines and comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
Email Marketing Platforms
Different email marketing platforms offer a variety of features and tools to help you effectively reach and engage your target audiences. From customizable templates to advanced analytics, these platforms make creating, sending, and tracking email campaigns easier and more efficient for everyone involved.
When utilizing these platforms, it’s important to adhere to best practices such as maintaining a clean and updated email list, personalizing content, tailoring the tone and style for the intended recipients, and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Additionally, regularly monitoring campaign performance and adjusting based on insights can help optimize email marketing efforts to achieve better results.
Remember, any newsletters being sent less frequently than biweekly need to be submitted for University Brand Review (UBR).
If you would like to implement a newsletter for your unit, please
to discuss your options and plans.
Mailchimp
At the college level, we use Mailchimp to communicate with our current students and alumni. Every Monday, we send our Undergrad Newswire to students with details about upcoming events and deadlines, internship and full-time job postings, and student and alumni spotlights. We also send occasional Undergrad Updates about a specific event or deadline of high importance. We send Leader’s Letters from many of our department heads and program directors to their alumni and donors, as well as a biannual email update from Dean Lang to all Liberal Arts alumni.
Because of our numerous audiences, which include large subsets of current students and alumni, we pay for two account subscriptions—one for alumni and donors and one for undergraduate students. However, if you only have one audience (mailing list) with fewer than 250 total contacts, you can sign up for Mailchimp’s free account. We encourage our units to use Mailchimp because it makes the UBR process easier for both you and us. We’re able to go in and edit your newsletter directly to avoid the back-and-forth email communication involved with listing out all necessary edits for you to make yourself before sending the revised version for final approval.
Pros
- Track open rate, click rate, and link clicks according to a click map
- Make your emails visual while still being accessible
- Easily add photos
- Allows for easy sharing on social media
- Only one click away from viewing content in email
Cons
- Payment required if you need more than one audience or have more than 250 contacts
- Sent as a mass email, so no edits can be made once the user has clicked the Send button
Mailchimp Campaign Overview
Edit Design
Webpage Newsletter
Host your newsletter right on your unit website! Our design team can work with you to create your newsletter on your unit’s website. After finalizing the page, the link can then be sent out to recipients via email, teams, etc.
Webpage newsletters can be requested via our Creative Request form. In your request, make sure to include a word document of your content and a link to the sharepoint folder with photos you’d like to include. Per our website accessibility standards, captions and alt text are required for images, so please include that copy in your word document alongside your content. If you have additional questions or need further assistance, please reach out to the Accessibility Office at accessibility@psu.edu.
One example of this method is on The Center for International Human Resource Studies’ website.
Pros
- Mobile-friendly
- Tracks page views and click analytics
- Allows for easy sharing on social media
- No page formatting or design knowledge required
Cons
- Requires the user to take the extra step to click on a link to view the newsletter
- Limited formatting options
Newsletter Templates in Canva
Our team can create you a unit specific newsletter template in Canva that you can replicate and fill in with content. After creating your draft, you will need to submit a UBR request to get your newsletter approved before saving and sending as a PDF to your recipients.
Note: If you would like to include your newsletter PDF on your unit website, it must comply with our website accessibility standards. Please refer to the PDF Accessibility Testing Protocol when adding content to your newsletter. If you have additional questions or need further assistance, please reach out to the Accessibility Office at accessibility@psu.edu.
One examples of this method is the Global Leaders of Penn State newsletter from the Global and International Studies Program.
Pros
- Make your emails visual while still being accessible
- Easily add photos
- Replicate and send newsletters at your own pace
Cons
- Canva knowledge required
- Requires the user to take the extra step to download the attachment
- Doesn’t track total views, average time spent, average completion percentage
Penn State Listserv
Learn more about using Penn State Listservs to communicate internally by visiting the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Information Technologies webpage.